Doppelganger by Jesika
Sep. 24th, 2006 01:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
mawishness.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
csi_fictionTitle: Doppelganger
Genre: Angst / Suspense
Pairing: Greg Sanders / Ryan Wolfe
Rating: NC-17
Created on: 05/05/06
Summary: A serial killer leads the Vegas team to Miami, raising the suspicions of one CSI. Is the killer amongst the team of CSI's, or will they follow the wrong path and lose one of their own?
~*~*~
It's not his scene, never really was. Too many sweaty bodies pressed far too closely against each other, strangers‘ hands touching you as if it's their god-given right. He's only been to a place like this once, only lasted half an hour before he was pushing his way back out the door, his clothes smelling of alcohol and smoke, with a hint of sex from the bodies rubbing against his ass.
Now he stands back in the middle of the same club, his camera poised over the body of a young male, eyes wide and lifeless. A deep, thick cut encircles the front half of his neck, and the CSI snaps a few shots of the fatal wound before straightening back up, allowing his eyes to scan over what's left of the club goers, most having scattered upon hearing the police sirens.
It's the third body they've found this month, all with their throats cut almost to the bone by a ligature. The killer is getting more bold with each victim, the first killed silently while they slept, the second in an alley during the day, and now the latest in the middle of a club full of people.
Ryan's starting to get frustrated, unable to find any leads, feeling like this guy is mocking them. It‘s starting to feel like this guy is killing for the sheer fun of it, leaving the victims behind with all of their possessions, unscathed, other than the wire cutting into their throats. The fact that all of the victims are in the same age range and look almost alike says there’s something more going on though, as if the killer is trying to get rid of someone from his past, or perhaps trying to get rid of those that look like himself, incapable of killing himself but instead trying to get rid of those that resemble him enough to kill them.
What's worse is the lack of evidence he leaves behind. He manages to rid the scene of any trace of himself, all except for the ligature with no DNA, no other way to trace its owner or where it might have come from.
"Let me guess, male victim in his late twenties, early thirties, with his throat sliced open by a ligature. Dark hair, skinny, between five-seven and six feet tall."
Ryan turns around in the direction of the voice, and he looks frustrated at the other CSI after quickly glancing at his watch.
“I paged you almost an hour ago, Eric, what took you so long?"
"Calm down, Wolfe, I was trying to close up on my other case. After three weeks, the prick that attacked that young girl is finally behind bars, and not a moment too soon; he was already tracking his next victim."
Ryan shakes his head and turns back to the body, wishing he could close this case already and get this lunatic off the streets. It doesn't make it any easier when crime in the area has seemed to rise in the past few weeks, pushing all of the CSIs onto different cases, forcing him to pull an exhausting amount of double and triple shifts.
At least with Eric now helping him on the case, they’re able to get through the current scene much faster, soon finding themselves back at the lab with nothing much else than a few partial fingerprints that could have come from anyone in the club and the infamous ligature that has yet to give them any leads on finding the killer.
Upon arriving back at the lab, the two men are called into one of the lab's large conference rooms where a small handful of unknown people are sitting around the large table with Horatio, looking at Ryan and Eric a bit hopefully.
"What's going on, H?" Both men are perplexed, and they follow their supervisor's request when he asks them to take a seat, making sure he has the men’s attention before explaining the situation.
"This is the CSI team from Las Vegas; it looks like we all may be after the same serial killer. They've got three victims, same cause of death, same lack of evidence with a single ligature. The cases have been unsolved for the past two years, but now it looks like our guy is back, and it's time we catch him. This is Gil Grissom, he's the supervisor of the Las Vegas night shift, and he's going to catch us up on what looks like this guy‘s first victims out in Nevada. From his shift he's also brought with him Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, Sara Sidle, and Greg Sanders."
After a quick wave from the CSIs, all attention turns to Grissom, the oldest CSI passing around copies of the case files from Vegas, allowing everyone to go along with him while he explains what they hope to be this guy‘s first victim.
"In late 2002, we recovered the body of a twenty-eight year old homeless man by the name of Josh Matthews. He was found in a heavily wooded area outside of Vegas, killed by strangulation with a ligature. By the time he was found by some tourists, his body had become heavily decayed, and any DNA left behind on the ligature had deteriorated beyond use. There were some traces of footprints leading to and from the area that the body was found, but a heavy rainfall after the man had been killed erased anything of use. Defense wounds were located, but no DNA, no signs of sexual trauma, all clothing and possessions were still intact."
Other than the fact that the Miami team's first victim was found in an alley instead of a wooded and secluded area, everything else almost matches up. Although there was no rainfall before the discovery of the body in the alley, there was no DNA evidence found at all, the victims possessions still on his person.
"Our second victim was found in early 2003 in his car outside of a nightclub."
Catherine starts the description of the second victim, Ryan flipping through the new case file to look over the crime scene photos, finding that the victim looks not only like the Miami victims, but also surprisingly familiar to the Las Vegas CSI sitting across from him. They're both in their late twenties, early thirties, dark spiked hair, dark eyes. There's something a little mysterious about both of them, and Ryan has to force himself to look away when the other CSI realizes that someone's staring at him.
"The victim is twenty-seven year old Michael Stans, and he had just started at one of the top law firms in the county. He went out with some friends but left early because he had to work early in the morning. His car was located at the back of the parking lot away from all the commotion of the club. His body was found later by his friends whose cars were parked on either side of his. He was strangled from the backseat by a heavy rope, no DNA found at all on the murder weapon or under the victim's fingernails; we believe the killer was wearing black leather gloves based on some fibers we identified from the rope. As with the first victim, all clothes were intact, all possessions left behind, and no sexual assault was identified."
"Third victim, Thomas Elliot, found in a hotel room."
Warrick takes over now, and once again Ryan finds too many similarities between the victim and the Vegas CSI in front of him. It sends chills down his spine, and he has to force himself to look at the picture in front of him to keep up with the CSI talking.
"The victim was a twenty-eight year old bartender from New York, in town for a friend's wedding. The maid cleaning the hotel room found his body in the bathtub of his room, face down with no clothes on and the shower running. This time the victim was strangled with a thin wire that was twisted at the back of his neck to the point of cutting through his skin and embedding into his trachea. No valuable possessions were found, but his friends said that he was gambling pretty heavily at the casino earlier in the day, and that the victim pawned his watch and a valuable necklace for money. No signs of sexual assault, and no traces of DNA. We're still unsure of how the killer got into the room, witnesses say the victim went in alone, and they didn't see anyone else go in afterwards."
The room full of CSIs takes a moment to absorb all of the information and go through the case files on the Vegas victims, Ryan's eyes occasionally glancing up to the man across from him before returning to the pictures of lifeless bodies.
"Are there any questions so far?"
No one says anything for a moment in response to Horatio's question, but finally Eric speaks up, turning to the case file for the first victim.
“What kind of ligature was our first victim killed with?”
“We found a small rope wrapped around his neck. We believe this was his first victim because of the way the rope was at the ends, as if it broke several times in the process of strangulating the victim. We performed an experiment using the same type of rope at our lab, and if the victim was struggling enough, it could have taken the killer several tries of breaking the rope before he got it. For the second victim he used a tougher rope, he learned from his previous kill, and eventually, he moved to the pliable wire.”
"And you said DNA was too degraded on the first victim, right?"
"I personally handled all of the DNA on all three cases. I checked and re-checked several times, I came up with nothing each time."
Attention focuses on Greg as he speaks, the former lab tech getting a bit defensive. Ryan picks up on it immediately, his eyebrows raising briefly before Horatio cuts in to explain the Miami victims, the supervisor wanting to get everything covered so that they can go out and find this guy.
"Alright, our first victim was found only two weeks ago, thirty year old Tom Rosley. He was found in his bed, wire tightened around his neck to the point of near decapitation. Autopsy determined that the victim was asleep, there were no signs of forced entry, no witnesses saw anybody enter or leave his home. Just as with all the other victims, there was no sign of sexual assault, no obvious theft of possessions.
Second victim was found last week. Thirty year old John Kincaid, found in an alley during the middle of the day with the same type of wire tightened around his neck. He was found by a restaurant owner, all possessions still on him, no sexual assault, no DNA evidence. We have a witness that saw someone leaving the alley shortly after the time of death, but we don't yet have any leads on the man's identity."
"Third victim was found just this morning."
Ryan finally takes over, all attention focuses on him with a lack of case file copies to look at. Since the case is so fresh, he takes a moment to flip through his notes, finding a witness statement that he remembers being of some use.
"The victim is thirty-one year old Todd Kayhill, killed by strangulation. It seems that our killer is starting to take chances - he killed Mr. Kayhill in the middle of a very popular club. Our prime witness says she was dancing when she felt someone behind her, like they were trying to push her down. When she turned around, the guy was holding his throat, and he was covered in blood. By the time the paramedics got there, he was already dead. His body arrived at the morgue a short time ago, I was on my way down there when you called me in here."
"A crowd full of people… someone must have seen the guy who did this."
"Well, if anyone did, they either scattered when they heard the police sirens, or they're not talking. We questioned everyone that was left at the club when we got there, only the lady that the guy fell on really saw the victim, and a few other people around at the time. I've asked the police to show everyone a sketch of the suspect our last victim witnessed from the Kincaid case."
This should be it, the case that breaks the lead, how could it not be when the guy was killed in a room full of people? But yet, they're still coming up empty, and Ryan can only hope that just maybe they might get a little further with this one after they've gotten more time to go over everything.
"This guy‘s currently got six murders under his belt that we know of, and we need to stop him before he adds another victim to the list. With the Vegas team here, hopefully we can close in on him faster. For now(,) we've only got Ryan and Eric on our team, our other CSIs are handling other cases, so we have to pair up the best we can. Mr. Grissom, Ms. Willows, I'd like to gather all the evidence we have so far on all of the victims and go over it thoroughly, there's got to be something in there that we're missing. We also need to put some sort of timeline together and figure out why this guy went underground for two years before coming here. Maybe then we can get some sort of idea of who this guy is before he decides to go into hiding again.
Eric, I want you and Mr. Stokes to start going over the evidence from the club. There were a lot of people there so there's going to be quite a bit of stuff to go through. Ms. Sidle, Mr. Brown, I'll have one of our detectives get with you, I'd like you to try and track down as many people that you can that were at that club last night that weren’t questioned by the police. Ryan, you and Mr. Sanders go down to the morgue and talk to Alexx, see what she's got on our latest victim."
Horatio hands out the assignments, and no one complains as they stand up, gathering the information they have before spreading out. Ryan and Greg are the last ones left in the room, and Ryan watches the other man gather his stuff together, something a bit off about him as he rounds the table and extends his hand.
"Looks like we'll be working close until we get this guy. We should probably get down to the morgue, I don't think neither of our bosses want to spend too much time on this case at the risk of getting another victim."
Ryan nods wordlessly, there’s something about this guy he can't figure out. Maybe it's the fact that he looks so much like the victims, or that he got so defensive when the DNA results were questioned, or maybe it's just something else all together. Whatever it is, Ryan can't dwell on it right now, instead leading the way down to the morgue where Alexx Woods is in the process of finishing up the examination of their latest victim.
“Alexx, this is Greg Sanders, he's here from Las Vegas helping us on the case along with the rest of their team."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sanders, Horatio just informed me that this guy isn't new to murder. It sounds like he perfected his technique in Vegas before coming out here."
"That means we've got the same results as our other vics? Murder by strangulation, all possessions still located on the body, and no sexual assault?"
"Well, this guy may have perfected his technique in Vegas, but he may have just made a big slip up."
Ryan looks at the coroner questioningly as Alexx turns around and grabs something from her counter, turning back around to lay out a pair of jeans on an empty table. There's a small amount of blood just on the backside of them, and both Ryan and Greg examine it carefully before straightening back up, Ryan looking at Greg suspiciously when the other man responds to what he sees.
"Our vic was sexually assaulted."
Looking at the blood stains alone, the thought of sexual assault wouldn’t have initially crossed Ryan's mind, but it seems that Greg hit the nail right on the head as Alexx nods.
"I found tearing around the anus; Mr. Kayhill was sexually assaulted prior to being strangled. His pants were pulled up and zipped up, but the button was left undone. I'm thinking he was raped somewhere in the club where no one saw, and as he was trying to make his escape, that's when he was strangled. I sent the rape kit up to be analyzed, told them to make it top priority, and they should be done soon."
“Anal tearing doesn’t exactly mean this guy was raped. Maybe it was his first time with a guy.”
“This doesn’t look like the type of damage you’d receive from it being the first encounter if it were consensual. There’s massive tearing in and around the area.”
It may be rape, but Ryan’s still unsure if this is the act of their killer. He’s never sexually assaulted any of his other victims, why this one?
“Could he have been raped by someone else and then strangled by our killer on the way out of the club?”
“That’s possible. The strangulation and rape occurred at two different times.”
As Ryan and Alexx continue talking, Ryan watches Greg visually analyzing the body, eventually moving back over to it before turning towards the coroner.
"Did you find any DNA under his nails? Any defense wounds?"
"All the trace from his nails have been sent up to the lab. The only thing I found that is out of the ordinary is the bruise across his abdomen. It's fresh, no more than a few hours, or less, before he was killed. The shape and size of the bruise is indicative of being pushed against or over something, maybe a table-"
"Or a sink?"
Both Ryan's and Alexx's eyes focus on Greg, but the Vegas CSI is looking at the body again, more specifically, the bruising he initially noticed upon first inspection of the body.
"What kind of club was this guy found in?"
"I'm not sure exactly. The owner says there are several different types that go in there, he said it's a pretty open place. Sometimes people mistake it for a hotel room or the back of a car and start going at it like they don't have a packed club for an audience, but he says his security is pretty good about breaking that stuff up before it can get too far."
"What about the bathroom, how's the security around there?"
"I didn't ask, I didn't think there really was a reason to. Did I miss something?"
"Security is usually pretty good about the predominant crowd in the club, around the bar or on the dance floor, but they usually don't think twice about the bathrooms, which is where most anything happens. The bruising on our vic‘s abdomen is about the same height as a sink in most restrooms, it's got the same consistency as well."
"If it happened in the restroom, wouldn't someone try and stop the guy?"
"It would have given the victim a chance to escape and try to run."
"People in these types of clubs go by a don't ask, don't tell policy. Seeing two guys going at it in a restroom, it's usually not out of the norm in this type of club, everyone just goes on with their business, ignores it."
Ryan's suspicions about the other man are becoming increasingly heightened, Greg making correct assumptions of the club that Ryan didn't even describe in the case review. It's like Greg was there, and that thought alone makes the Miami CSI shiver just enough that Alexx notices it but Greg doesn't.
"We need to go back to that scene and check the bathroom. If the victim was in there, we might be able to get another clue as to who our killer is."
~*~*~
Posted from The Naked Attic and updated every Saturday.
Genre: Angst / Suspense
Pairing: Greg Sanders / Ryan Wolfe
Rating: NC-17
Created on: 05/05/06
Summary: A serial killer leads the Vegas team to Miami, raising the suspicions of one CSI. Is the killer amongst the team of CSI's, or will they follow the wrong path and lose one of their own?
~*~*~
It's not his scene, never really was. Too many sweaty bodies pressed far too closely against each other, strangers‘ hands touching you as if it's their god-given right. He's only been to a place like this once, only lasted half an hour before he was pushing his way back out the door, his clothes smelling of alcohol and smoke, with a hint of sex from the bodies rubbing against his ass.
Now he stands back in the middle of the same club, his camera poised over the body of a young male, eyes wide and lifeless. A deep, thick cut encircles the front half of his neck, and the CSI snaps a few shots of the fatal wound before straightening back up, allowing his eyes to scan over what's left of the club goers, most having scattered upon hearing the police sirens.
It's the third body they've found this month, all with their throats cut almost to the bone by a ligature. The killer is getting more bold with each victim, the first killed silently while they slept, the second in an alley during the day, and now the latest in the middle of a club full of people.
Ryan's starting to get frustrated, unable to find any leads, feeling like this guy is mocking them. It‘s starting to feel like this guy is killing for the sheer fun of it, leaving the victims behind with all of their possessions, unscathed, other than the wire cutting into their throats. The fact that all of the victims are in the same age range and look almost alike says there’s something more going on though, as if the killer is trying to get rid of someone from his past, or perhaps trying to get rid of those that look like himself, incapable of killing himself but instead trying to get rid of those that resemble him enough to kill them.
What's worse is the lack of evidence he leaves behind. He manages to rid the scene of any trace of himself, all except for the ligature with no DNA, no other way to trace its owner or where it might have come from.
"Let me guess, male victim in his late twenties, early thirties, with his throat sliced open by a ligature. Dark hair, skinny, between five-seven and six feet tall."
Ryan turns around in the direction of the voice, and he looks frustrated at the other CSI after quickly glancing at his watch.
“I paged you almost an hour ago, Eric, what took you so long?"
"Calm down, Wolfe, I was trying to close up on my other case. After three weeks, the prick that attacked that young girl is finally behind bars, and not a moment too soon; he was already tracking his next victim."
Ryan shakes his head and turns back to the body, wishing he could close this case already and get this lunatic off the streets. It doesn't make it any easier when crime in the area has seemed to rise in the past few weeks, pushing all of the CSIs onto different cases, forcing him to pull an exhausting amount of double and triple shifts.
At least with Eric now helping him on the case, they’re able to get through the current scene much faster, soon finding themselves back at the lab with nothing much else than a few partial fingerprints that could have come from anyone in the club and the infamous ligature that has yet to give them any leads on finding the killer.
Upon arriving back at the lab, the two men are called into one of the lab's large conference rooms where a small handful of unknown people are sitting around the large table with Horatio, looking at Ryan and Eric a bit hopefully.
"What's going on, H?" Both men are perplexed, and they follow their supervisor's request when he asks them to take a seat, making sure he has the men’s attention before explaining the situation.
"This is the CSI team from Las Vegas; it looks like we all may be after the same serial killer. They've got three victims, same cause of death, same lack of evidence with a single ligature. The cases have been unsolved for the past two years, but now it looks like our guy is back, and it's time we catch him. This is Gil Grissom, he's the supervisor of the Las Vegas night shift, and he's going to catch us up on what looks like this guy‘s first victims out in Nevada. From his shift he's also brought with him Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, Sara Sidle, and Greg Sanders."
After a quick wave from the CSIs, all attention turns to Grissom, the oldest CSI passing around copies of the case files from Vegas, allowing everyone to go along with him while he explains what they hope to be this guy‘s first victim.
"In late 2002, we recovered the body of a twenty-eight year old homeless man by the name of Josh Matthews. He was found in a heavily wooded area outside of Vegas, killed by strangulation with a ligature. By the time he was found by some tourists, his body had become heavily decayed, and any DNA left behind on the ligature had deteriorated beyond use. There were some traces of footprints leading to and from the area that the body was found, but a heavy rainfall after the man had been killed erased anything of use. Defense wounds were located, but no DNA, no signs of sexual trauma, all clothing and possessions were still intact."
Other than the fact that the Miami team's first victim was found in an alley instead of a wooded and secluded area, everything else almost matches up. Although there was no rainfall before the discovery of the body in the alley, there was no DNA evidence found at all, the victims possessions still on his person.
"Our second victim was found in early 2003 in his car outside of a nightclub."
Catherine starts the description of the second victim, Ryan flipping through the new case file to look over the crime scene photos, finding that the victim looks not only like the Miami victims, but also surprisingly familiar to the Las Vegas CSI sitting across from him. They're both in their late twenties, early thirties, dark spiked hair, dark eyes. There's something a little mysterious about both of them, and Ryan has to force himself to look away when the other CSI realizes that someone's staring at him.
"The victim is twenty-seven year old Michael Stans, and he had just started at one of the top law firms in the county. He went out with some friends but left early because he had to work early in the morning. His car was located at the back of the parking lot away from all the commotion of the club. His body was found later by his friends whose cars were parked on either side of his. He was strangled from the backseat by a heavy rope, no DNA found at all on the murder weapon or under the victim's fingernails; we believe the killer was wearing black leather gloves based on some fibers we identified from the rope. As with the first victim, all clothes were intact, all possessions left behind, and no sexual assault was identified."
"Third victim, Thomas Elliot, found in a hotel room."
Warrick takes over now, and once again Ryan finds too many similarities between the victim and the Vegas CSI in front of him. It sends chills down his spine, and he has to force himself to look at the picture in front of him to keep up with the CSI talking.
"The victim was a twenty-eight year old bartender from New York, in town for a friend's wedding. The maid cleaning the hotel room found his body in the bathtub of his room, face down with no clothes on and the shower running. This time the victim was strangled with a thin wire that was twisted at the back of his neck to the point of cutting through his skin and embedding into his trachea. No valuable possessions were found, but his friends said that he was gambling pretty heavily at the casino earlier in the day, and that the victim pawned his watch and a valuable necklace for money. No signs of sexual assault, and no traces of DNA. We're still unsure of how the killer got into the room, witnesses say the victim went in alone, and they didn't see anyone else go in afterwards."
The room full of CSIs takes a moment to absorb all of the information and go through the case files on the Vegas victims, Ryan's eyes occasionally glancing up to the man across from him before returning to the pictures of lifeless bodies.
"Are there any questions so far?"
No one says anything for a moment in response to Horatio's question, but finally Eric speaks up, turning to the case file for the first victim.
“What kind of ligature was our first victim killed with?”
“We found a small rope wrapped around his neck. We believe this was his first victim because of the way the rope was at the ends, as if it broke several times in the process of strangulating the victim. We performed an experiment using the same type of rope at our lab, and if the victim was struggling enough, it could have taken the killer several tries of breaking the rope before he got it. For the second victim he used a tougher rope, he learned from his previous kill, and eventually, he moved to the pliable wire.”
"And you said DNA was too degraded on the first victim, right?"
"I personally handled all of the DNA on all three cases. I checked and re-checked several times, I came up with nothing each time."
Attention focuses on Greg as he speaks, the former lab tech getting a bit defensive. Ryan picks up on it immediately, his eyebrows raising briefly before Horatio cuts in to explain the Miami victims, the supervisor wanting to get everything covered so that they can go out and find this guy.
"Alright, our first victim was found only two weeks ago, thirty year old Tom Rosley. He was found in his bed, wire tightened around his neck to the point of near decapitation. Autopsy determined that the victim was asleep, there were no signs of forced entry, no witnesses saw anybody enter or leave his home. Just as with all the other victims, there was no sign of sexual assault, no obvious theft of possessions.
Second victim was found last week. Thirty year old John Kincaid, found in an alley during the middle of the day with the same type of wire tightened around his neck. He was found by a restaurant owner, all possessions still on him, no sexual assault, no DNA evidence. We have a witness that saw someone leaving the alley shortly after the time of death, but we don't yet have any leads on the man's identity."
"Third victim was found just this morning."
Ryan finally takes over, all attention focuses on him with a lack of case file copies to look at. Since the case is so fresh, he takes a moment to flip through his notes, finding a witness statement that he remembers being of some use.
"The victim is thirty-one year old Todd Kayhill, killed by strangulation. It seems that our killer is starting to take chances - he killed Mr. Kayhill in the middle of a very popular club. Our prime witness says she was dancing when she felt someone behind her, like they were trying to push her down. When she turned around, the guy was holding his throat, and he was covered in blood. By the time the paramedics got there, he was already dead. His body arrived at the morgue a short time ago, I was on my way down there when you called me in here."
"A crowd full of people… someone must have seen the guy who did this."
"Well, if anyone did, they either scattered when they heard the police sirens, or they're not talking. We questioned everyone that was left at the club when we got there, only the lady that the guy fell on really saw the victim, and a few other people around at the time. I've asked the police to show everyone a sketch of the suspect our last victim witnessed from the Kincaid case."
This should be it, the case that breaks the lead, how could it not be when the guy was killed in a room full of people? But yet, they're still coming up empty, and Ryan can only hope that just maybe they might get a little further with this one after they've gotten more time to go over everything.
"This guy‘s currently got six murders under his belt that we know of, and we need to stop him before he adds another victim to the list. With the Vegas team here, hopefully we can close in on him faster. For now(,) we've only got Ryan and Eric on our team, our other CSIs are handling other cases, so we have to pair up the best we can. Mr. Grissom, Ms. Willows, I'd like to gather all the evidence we have so far on all of the victims and go over it thoroughly, there's got to be something in there that we're missing. We also need to put some sort of timeline together and figure out why this guy went underground for two years before coming here. Maybe then we can get some sort of idea of who this guy is before he decides to go into hiding again.
Eric, I want you and Mr. Stokes to start going over the evidence from the club. There were a lot of people there so there's going to be quite a bit of stuff to go through. Ms. Sidle, Mr. Brown, I'll have one of our detectives get with you, I'd like you to try and track down as many people that you can that were at that club last night that weren’t questioned by the police. Ryan, you and Mr. Sanders go down to the morgue and talk to Alexx, see what she's got on our latest victim."
Horatio hands out the assignments, and no one complains as they stand up, gathering the information they have before spreading out. Ryan and Greg are the last ones left in the room, and Ryan watches the other man gather his stuff together, something a bit off about him as he rounds the table and extends his hand.
"Looks like we'll be working close until we get this guy. We should probably get down to the morgue, I don't think neither of our bosses want to spend too much time on this case at the risk of getting another victim."
Ryan nods wordlessly, there’s something about this guy he can't figure out. Maybe it's the fact that he looks so much like the victims, or that he got so defensive when the DNA results were questioned, or maybe it's just something else all together. Whatever it is, Ryan can't dwell on it right now, instead leading the way down to the morgue where Alexx Woods is in the process of finishing up the examination of their latest victim.
“Alexx, this is Greg Sanders, he's here from Las Vegas helping us on the case along with the rest of their team."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sanders, Horatio just informed me that this guy isn't new to murder. It sounds like he perfected his technique in Vegas before coming out here."
"That means we've got the same results as our other vics? Murder by strangulation, all possessions still located on the body, and no sexual assault?"
"Well, this guy may have perfected his technique in Vegas, but he may have just made a big slip up."
Ryan looks at the coroner questioningly as Alexx turns around and grabs something from her counter, turning back around to lay out a pair of jeans on an empty table. There's a small amount of blood just on the backside of them, and both Ryan and Greg examine it carefully before straightening back up, Ryan looking at Greg suspiciously when the other man responds to what he sees.
"Our vic was sexually assaulted."
Looking at the blood stains alone, the thought of sexual assault wouldn’t have initially crossed Ryan's mind, but it seems that Greg hit the nail right on the head as Alexx nods.
"I found tearing around the anus; Mr. Kayhill was sexually assaulted prior to being strangled. His pants were pulled up and zipped up, but the button was left undone. I'm thinking he was raped somewhere in the club where no one saw, and as he was trying to make his escape, that's when he was strangled. I sent the rape kit up to be analyzed, told them to make it top priority, and they should be done soon."
“Anal tearing doesn’t exactly mean this guy was raped. Maybe it was his first time with a guy.”
“This doesn’t look like the type of damage you’d receive from it being the first encounter if it were consensual. There’s massive tearing in and around the area.”
It may be rape, but Ryan’s still unsure if this is the act of their killer. He’s never sexually assaulted any of his other victims, why this one?
“Could he have been raped by someone else and then strangled by our killer on the way out of the club?”
“That’s possible. The strangulation and rape occurred at two different times.”
As Ryan and Alexx continue talking, Ryan watches Greg visually analyzing the body, eventually moving back over to it before turning towards the coroner.
"Did you find any DNA under his nails? Any defense wounds?"
"All the trace from his nails have been sent up to the lab. The only thing I found that is out of the ordinary is the bruise across his abdomen. It's fresh, no more than a few hours, or less, before he was killed. The shape and size of the bruise is indicative of being pushed against or over something, maybe a table-"
"Or a sink?"
Both Ryan's and Alexx's eyes focus on Greg, but the Vegas CSI is looking at the body again, more specifically, the bruising he initially noticed upon first inspection of the body.
"What kind of club was this guy found in?"
"I'm not sure exactly. The owner says there are several different types that go in there, he said it's a pretty open place. Sometimes people mistake it for a hotel room or the back of a car and start going at it like they don't have a packed club for an audience, but he says his security is pretty good about breaking that stuff up before it can get too far."
"What about the bathroom, how's the security around there?"
"I didn't ask, I didn't think there really was a reason to. Did I miss something?"
"Security is usually pretty good about the predominant crowd in the club, around the bar or on the dance floor, but they usually don't think twice about the bathrooms, which is where most anything happens. The bruising on our vic‘s abdomen is about the same height as a sink in most restrooms, it's got the same consistency as well."
"If it happened in the restroom, wouldn't someone try and stop the guy?"
"It would have given the victim a chance to escape and try to run."
"People in these types of clubs go by a don't ask, don't tell policy. Seeing two guys going at it in a restroom, it's usually not out of the norm in this type of club, everyone just goes on with their business, ignores it."
Ryan's suspicions about the other man are becoming increasingly heightened, Greg making correct assumptions of the club that Ryan didn't even describe in the case review. It's like Greg was there, and that thought alone makes the Miami CSI shiver just enough that Alexx notices it but Greg doesn't.
"We need to go back to that scene and check the bathroom. If the victim was in there, we might be able to get another clue as to who our killer is."
~*~*~
Posted from The Naked Attic and updated every Saturday.
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